This blog is a great opportunity to share ideas about ways to
transform schooling as we know it, to help all students realise their
talents, passions and dreams. Be great to hear from anyone out there! Feel free to add a comment to Bruce's Blog and enter e-mail to receive postings

“There
is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are
shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and
unintentional, and advantageous and

detrimental The uncertain reality is that,
with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging
at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the
time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of
how it influences our children’s ability to think.”

“At
a time of great transformation in the world, there are no shortages of themes
to pick from. But teachers have special opportunities to tell a magnificent
story about themselves and their profession:” Thomas Markham

Professor Stephen Heppell - if you ever get the
chance to attend one of his presentations, take it!

“Teachers – and increasingly students – are realising that schools need to be
places in which difficult, exciting, challenging, engaging, complex learning
happens, rather than being where

Big challenge for schools to adapt to!

uniform education is delivered. And they need
spaces that encourage that learning and help develop the sorts of skills
demanded by employers. Spaces for concentration and collaboration, spaces to
make and to mash-up, spaces to celebrate and exhibit, spaces to excel and
spaces to share.”

“The
assessment itself is completely artificial. It’s not ranking teachers in accordance with their ability to help develop
children who will reach their potential, explore their creative interests.
Those things you’re not testing..it’s a rank that’s mostly meaningless. And the very ranking itself is harmful. It’s turning us into individuals who devote our lives to achieving a
rank. Not into doing things that are valuable and important.”

“The
Sudbury Valley model of education is not a variation of standard education. It
is not a progressive version of traditional schooling. It is not a Montessori
school or a Dewey school or a Piagetian constructivist school. It is something
entirely different.”

“Add
to this the help that the physical geography of a printed page or the heft of a
book can provide to memory, and you’ve got a conclusion neatly matching our embodied natures: the varied,
demanding, motor-skill-activating physicality of objects tends to light up our
brains brighter than the placeless, weightless scrolling of words on screens.”

Why schools are failing our boys“Boys today aren’t fundamentally
different than the boys of 150 years ago. Yet today, they’re confined to
classrooms, expected to remain still for the majority of the day, and barely
allowed to tackle meaningful labor or the real world until they reach the magical
age of 18. Is it any wonder our boys are struggling?”

“Adults
often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory,
spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more
fundamental. It's this kind of learning, in fact, that allows kids to learn
from teachers in the first place.”

How to spot if you or colleagues are stressed: tell-tale signs for
teachers

“It
goes without saying that there is a direct correlation between teacher workload
and stress levels, and both are currently unprecedentedly high. It’s also no coincidence that over the past few years hundreds of good
teachers have been signed off with long-term sickness or quit altogether.”

Bruce’s latest
article is a must read for all creative and innovative child centred teachers.

“All the above ideas point out the vital role of a teacher to assist
all students work towards their potential - to ensure that all students have
the ability to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge' as it wisely says in
the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum.”

“Are you thinking about becoming an elementary school teacher? If you
possess all or most of these personal qualities, I think you could contribute a
lot to children, the community, and the field of Education. While there is no
static formula for what makes an excellent educator, these personality traits
form the essential foundation for succeeding in the classroom as an instructor
and as a leader.”

“However, in my work, I have found that the notion of developing a
growth mindset is as equally applicable to staff and teacher performance as it
is to students. This article begins with a brief discussion about the
difference between the two mindsets, what that means for education, and
concludes with some ideas for how school leaders might seek to develop a growth
mindset amongst their staff.”

Bruce’s comment: The
importance of play at all levels of learning – seems
blindingly obvious.

“Giving students occasions to learn through play not only fosters
creative thinking, problem solving, independence, and perseverance, but also
addresses teenagers’ developmental needs
for greater independence and ownership in their learning, opportunities for
physical activity and creative expression, and the ability to demonstrate
competence.”

Bruce’s comment: And
to continue the obvious – the power of integrated project based
learning. Some day someone in the USA will discover John Dewey!!!

"What we teach fits into the
curriculum, but we try to make it as interesting as possible for the kids. The
focus is on helping them acquire real-world skills and become problem solvers.
Nobody works in isolation these days. You need to learn how to work with
others.”

A New Approach to Designing Educational
Technology: Is the biggest learning disability an emotional one?

Bruce’s comment:
Valuing the emotions in learning – well it seems obvious to me. Engaging
students who no longer engage in learning by using ICT wisely.

‘And now, Rose and his team have concluded that the most pervasive
learning disability in schools, and the No. 1 challenge for UDL, isn’t physical or cognitive, it’s emotional—turning around kids

Positive attitudes or' mindsets' are everything!

who are turned off by
school.

“We’ve seen that technology can do a
lot of stuff to support students, but the real driver is: Do they actually want
to learn something?” says Rose. “If they do,
kids will go through a lot of barriers to learn it. Creating the conditions
that turn on that drive has become the major function of our work.”’

The very with it views of a long retiredinnovative principal teacher. Good reading to learn about quality
creative teaching –
might be useful even for those in a modern learning
environment (MLE). The teacher taught before the introduction of computers – now
in his 80s

Bill - a very creative teachers from the 70s - now in his 80s.

he is a whizz on his Apple (computer). One wonders what wisdom we
have lost.

“As a group we were disillusioned with the traditional pre-packaged
approach ...largely adult conceived....including ability grouping. Attributes
such as co-operation, understanding and sharing were largely given lip service.
We believed that learning should stem from the natural but vital curiosity of
children and it should centre around real experiences.”